Best Harvard Poems
For Langston Hughes
What sends them Harvard poets
I just couldn't do it, Sir:
What sends them Harvard poets
I just couldn't do it, Sir:
They'll never give me a Pulitzer.
What tickles them Yale poets
Just leaves me sad an' a grievin':
What tickles them Yale poets
Leaves me sad an' a grievin':
Never seen no Birch trees
On a snowy evenin'.
Then Oxford poets got they poems
An' I gots mine...
So I'll be movin' on, Langston
Movin' down the line....
Michael Ellis
Man stands high – in Creation - but higher yet she wants to stand!
Before Columbus, trees stood like Sentries, minding communications;
Once these lands were taken, WE hear much of “Supply & Demand,”
Nations weep: gone the Three Sisters and B. Bison from this land
Gone, too, crystal rivers, lakes, Bear Spirit, all Sacred Mountains
Man stands high – in Creation – but higher yet she wants to stand
Sacred tobacco now worth gold, peace pipes we don’t understand
Three Sisters kept apart; Maize is one of our sugar fountains
Once these lands were taken, WE hear much of “Supply & Demand”
Caleb went to Harvard College, against Uncle’s reprimand
First Native grad in ‘65 – before death – from consumption!
Man stands high - in Creation - but higher yet she wants to stand!
That Uncle was a leader on Martha’s Vineyard, Chief Shaman
He saw schools as the means to kill Tradition, shrewd deception;
Once these lands were taken, WE hear much of “Supply & Demand”
Caleb’s death killed Harvard-style Bible Colleges in this land
Trees stay down now, bug and butterfly species showcase declension
Man stands high – in Creation – but higher yet she wants to stand
Once these lands were taken, WE hear much of “Supply & Demand”
(c)Deo, 9/28/2017
a word the pain soothing
wining the morning air I feel cool in dark
a lore, an ancurseing heart ,today
a rummskiled to the fact that noone likes me
all are perdundently foolish
while mook of the death upon it's end
or shall i live agian
Tis the late June day
Which bring flocks
Their subconscious intentions
Obfuscated by the lingering dimensions
Flaccid ideals and breezes
Traversing gingerly through
The ancient elms
Seeded by the pulps of history
They pray, with each scrape
Of their prescient footsteps
For the sparkle, the brilliance
Those ghostly matters provide in perpetuity
The heat emanating from yearnings
Executed by minute's drive
From understandings siloed
In the labyrinth of mind's eye and virtue
Bless us, grand tome
Executor of fine minds and savages
Vanquish, release us into the
Banal confines heretofore begging
To improve and congeal
For the worlds remote
Need the godliness
The opaque permissive rain
Quenching thought to act
Towards probable endings
Splendid imperatives
Preserved for those
Who wish to partake.
(6/24/08)
Mr. Harvard
He stood there
With wide open eyes.
Mr. Harvard,
King of the skies.
We fell in love
And created hell.
All the games we played.
All the times we'd yell.
But none of them know-
Note Yale, Princeton, or Brown.
About our secret affair-
Our night on the town.
No. None will ever know
How we really feel.
Our secret is ours.
Our love is real.
It cries when it's hurt.
It laughs when it's happy.
With wide open eyes..
It looks like its' ... Daddy.
(c) 9/7/84
Harvard, at night - You still sit on the lawn
with the weight of both structures alive in your arms
Rachmaninoff's tears turning black at your hips
The counting of friends on your five finger tips
Sawdust and poetry, building the wall
A thousand feet wide, a thousand feet tall
Running for life times, for miles, a span
built in your introspect, with your own hands
Frailty and friendships locked into the bridge
Braided in steel as you reach and you give
High above mountains and high above land
all this entwined with the stretch of your hands
Still in the dark, on the lawn, as you see
a friend walking toward you, no shoes, and it's me
I'm a reminder of one bridge you've built
This effort the same as brick walls made of guilt
We span interlocked over oceans for miles
Stronger in steel when we reach during trials
Bent but not breaking, leaning but locked
Bolted in faith made of granite like rock
You are a thinker, musician, a muse
knowing that bridges or walls you must choose
Harvard night introspect, weighting the skies
burning Rachmaninoff tears in your eyes
In an instant you build the bridge, swallow the land
as you rise to your feet you hold onto my hand...
Advice to Harvard Students.
if you pour boiling oil
on your babies head
wait until the oil price has gone down.
if you undress in a public toilet
you may meet Piers Morgan
or the police may join in.
if you steal a computer
you'll have to take it back in the morning
for a Windows technology update.
if you want to attack an athiest,
don't worry. He'll tell the police
you don't exist.
if you decide to block the sidewalk
remember hookers, perverts and Jeremy Clarkson
have a right to walk on it too.
if you are arrested by an FBI agent
refuse to tell him
where Virginia is.
if you climb up Big Ben
to check your watch,
remember it's being repaired.
if you take a vacation in Saudi Arabia
don't forget to take
your own chain saw.
if you cross out the Samaritans
telephone number in the directory
insert your own number instead.
if you meet a nudist in the street
don't park your bike
between his buttocks.
if you give an intellectual
an I Q test use a chimp
as a control group.
if you meet President Trump
don't hold up a placard saying
serial killers begin here.
if you find an open coffin
who would you like to see in it?
Boris Karloff or Boris Johnson.
Shall college presidents resign
When the House says words cross the line?
What should we say next
If free speech lacks context?
"Stefanik is asinine!"
Good to know that we can be sure that Ms. Claudine Gay
Harvard's newest president was thoroughly vetted, 'the Harvard way'
She's good with Harvard's policy that using the wrong pronoun is abuse
But 'context is required' to discipline those who scream 'Genocide for Jews'
Harvard, M.I.T, Cambridge, Yale
Which career path did you choose?
Does your gift give or take
I would the to be smart it’s the most
Prized possession of the dark arts
Can you make a friend— like a craft project?
I know, I hear this parental voice, “just be yourself.”
All of my classes this semester will be in one building, but I’m a control freak, I wanted to walk my schedule, go class to class, like I will on my first day. I have a locker too—this is so high school—but I wanted to find it, try the combination and plan what I’ll carry. I have questions too, like how’s the wi-fi, are there charging outlets, and where can I get coffee?
Orientation is Tuesday—but who can wait until Tuesday? Classes start Wednesday. I’d never sleep this weekend with so many questions. I’m already having dreams where I’m lost, late and embarrassed.
So there I was, this morning, dressed for class with my green messenger bag—doing it—schedule in hand. I went into a small auditorium with cushioned, crimson, theater seating—where my first class will be—and there’s this other girl, dressed for class, schedule in hand.
We were like twins, except she’s tall and black and I’m not. Right off she commanded me, handing me her phone, no preamble, no “How do you do,” to “Take my picture.”
Of course, I obeyed, I’m not from outer space. I burst 50 quick frames, as she slightly varied her pose and she did likewise for me.
Her name is Chella and she graduated from Yale last week too, with a ‘Bachelor of Science in Global Affairs.’ I think I saw her on campus once or twice but our paths had never directly crossed.
“But IS 'Global Affairs' a science degree?” I asked skeptically.
“Probably not,” she answered, “but some of us can live with ambiguity.”
Her first direct, commanding phrase limns her personality perfectly.
Yeah, we hit it right off.
.
.
Songs for this:
Cruel To Be Kind by Letters to Cleo
Perfect Day by Povo
Are You Trying to Be Funny? by Everything But the Girl
Remember when we believed a NYC street block was too far? 50th, 51st, 52nd, and so on... well, state boundaries stack those blocks, and now there are thousands, maybe millions, blocking.
My preschool days taught me how to stack the reds, the blues, and the greens of building blocks but when I would finish, they would crash down like boulders, collapsing into an unstable heap. No sense of order. No sifting through for the parts that you want, discarding my least favorite color, red, or the pressure would crush down upon my hand, holding it down.
And as of late, the laws keep lecturing me: “stay in place, shelter at home.” But where is my home? Here, in the glimpse of a California suburban sunrise? Can a home be created in a place, or is it a manifestation of anticipation before you make eye contact, the connection of pure blues with ephemeral greens? Will home only be found once a month? Twice a year?
Across a nation, future plans slip over a waterfall of dreams into a river’s rapid flow. It carries us past those blocks, and disconnects at a right corner turn, and then I realize that the emotional burden of us will only wash me into an enclosed cave, no crevices. With this thought, now I am washed into a shore, reborn into the grass trodden ground, stamped with the imprint of tiny footprints, animal maybe, and our memories.
Now, the sun sets off of Amsterdam, and each and every block are an honest reminder that a touch, when removed, leaves no physical imprint and honesty might not exist in this life, but we can be reborn and each life lets us decide what home we will return to.
HARVARD!
-Dharga Nagar Safa
Harvard a knowledge mine,
Dig,
Deep!
Why expect a lot from A sluggard:
A trim look, not seeming haggard
And easy win of high regard?
You'd make much of A sluggard
A Great story from Great Harvard
Upon him wait with a staunch guard
And the often - praised by A Bard...
Then, you never knew A sluggard:
From Laziness to Prison Yard
After nice crimes testing, no Yard
Next lazy jailbreak and Graveyard.